Today's infrastructure networks are becoming more and more complicated and are including ever increasing numbers of devices with network capabilities. The Internet of Things (“IoT”) growth represents one growth area that cause enterprise networks, for example, to include substantially more network connected devices as compared to their historical requirements. One side-effect of adding such a large volume of connected devices is that infrastructure networks (e.g., enterprise private networks) have become more complicated and may require additional network support devices such as routers, bridges, domain name servers, network time protocol (“NTP”) servers, gateways, etc. Each of these network support devices (or simply “network devices”) requires a configuration of network parameters in order to function as desired within the possibly complex network architecture. In some cases, initially setting or changing, the configuration of a network device may require additional insight so that a device setting is set to a proper value within the context of an overall network design. Incorrect or non-optimum settings may have unforeseen and unintended consequences to the stability, reliability, and performance of an enterprise infrastructure network or portion thereof (e.g., a subnet). This is, in part, because configuration of one network device may inadvertently affect the performance or connectivity of other devices in the network.
Prior art methods for determining how to configure a network largely rely upon expertise and knowledge of a network administrator. In some cases, network administrators simply use configuration settings they believe will work and hope for the best. In other cases, limited help information may be available in the form of reference manuals or user guides. Also, even if a network device is not properly configured, sometimes the network “appears” to be functioning properly. However, if a subtle error is introduced to a network without large scale impact, it may be days or weeks before someone discovers that a printer or other device is not functioning correctly. Loss of network connection by devices is just one of the possible consequences to an improperly configured network. In other cases, a slight performance degradation may occur and not be noticed until a much later point in time. The degradation resulting in poor or less than optimal productivity of the devices (and possibly workforce) reliant on the network infrastructure. In short, incorrect configuration settings for network devices may cause undesired network performance, or even network failure. Accordingly, care should be taken when setting or adjusting configuration parameters of network devices.